Running

Stat

The problems with joining a running club are that we have to run on their schedule, run at their pace (I guess we don’t, but then we won’t look cool), and pay a fee.The pros of joining one include cool(max) uniforms, runners who know what ‘fartlek’ really means, a big cooler of gatorade, bananas, GU gels waiting for you at triangle park up on Diamond Head Rd, and most importantly, someone will still be running with me (or Ivy) on our faltering dedication days.

There are not many running clubs here on Oahu. There are the big ones like the Mid Pacific Runners Club, or the less intimidating Niketown Running Club, but somehow Ivy and I just stuck with each other to run.

After reading a very inspiring article, The 7 at 7 Club (TM), in the April issue of Runner’s World, I was very…inspired. Two middle-age men in Brooklyn started their own running club. The “grassroot nature” of a running club, in Sullivan’s words, is “about getting the other guy out there running so that he will do the same for you.” Well, Ivy and I do that for each other most of the time. Before we started running together two years ago, Ivy only runs between August to December. We now run throughout the year, cloudy or shine (that’s right, we still don’t run when it rains). But we’ve been having one too many ‘faltering dedication days’ that as we near August, the official start of the marathon training season, we need to expand our running circle in hopes of fortifying our will to get out the door each morning.

And so, without further ado, let me introduce you to

the 6@6 ClubTM.

We run six miles at 6 a.m. on Saturdays.

Other than that general rule, I have nothing else for now. Suggestions are welcomed, and we need not be zealots about the number six, or it will become cultish.

Ivy and I usually run three times a week, either M, W, Sat, or T, R, Sat. We don’t run fast. When we’re not in training, we often talk too much (often about food) that it’s hardly a run. Once we start our training plan, we aim for a 9:33 to 9:42 pace (not exactly, I chose those numbers instead of a rounding 9:30 to 9:45 so that you’ll think I know the exact science of pacing. It worked, didn’t it??).

We may not always run six miles at 6 a.m., but I’ll call it that just because the Brooklyn guys do the same. Yes, I’m blatantly copying the guys’ idea, but I see it as a tribute to them because their idea enlivened me.